“Inner peace is something we achieve within the mind.” —Dalai Lama, World Mental Health Day, October 10, 2020.
When my wife and I founded the company in 2011, we were consumed with selecting exactly the right name that would resonate with the community of people we might someday have the privilege of serving.
Revelations Counseling & Consulting was a company name meant to signify a mission dedicated to those therapeutic moments and personal insights that awaken every facet of the human experience—whether cognitive, emotional, behavioral, spiritual, or relational.
These “revelations” should then inherently and organically encourage the discovery of purpose, finding meaning in life, and the pursuit of richer experiences in our careers, academic pursuits, financial wellness, personal fitness, and other adventures.
So, our company motto, “Discover Your Best,” came quite naturally to us within this vision. We felt it harmonized with the central theme of creating the environment where our clients would achieve personal clarity, accompanied by a desire for a more abundant life.
In addition to our clients, we also envisioned that these same foundational concepts of psychological health and wellness should be accessible to our colleagues and employees. Discovering the best version of yourself within the Revelations Family needed to be an experiential and cultural imperative. How else could we presume to deliver person-centered care to our clients if we had not first considered the well-being and appropriately equipped our employees for such an important mission?
Being certified as a 2026 bronze recipient of the Bell Seal for Workplace Mental Health by Mental Health America was certainly a milestone for us in demonstrating our commitment to the mental wellness of the Revelations Family, but we remain steadfast in our plans to do more. These awards provide essential insights into the standards of excellence that ensure we are on the right path—the next step involves the thoughtful plans that secure the well-being of our people and are supportive of you in the challenging work you perform every day.
So, today is World Mental Health Day. It serves as a day of reflection for our company’s executive leadership and relevance to our mission. It is an international day of global mental health education and awareness that promotes quality care, enhanced access, and inspires advocacy to overcome social stigmas regarding treatment-seeking behaviors. This is profoundly important to us as a company, as we accommodate hundreds of mental health visits every month in our outpatient clinical practice—to help clients recover from past traumas, addictions, self-harm, marital discord, and the desperate thoughts that lead to contemplating suicide.
It is a serious endeavor, but also a great privilege to meet people in these dark places and to offer the light and revelations that can lead to healing.
Candidly, neither my wife nor I expected that this vision for the clinical practice would expand into the provision of thousands of essential whole-health and quality-of-life services that our Revelations Family coordinates every single day. No matter how much we expand, however, it is very important that we stay true to the same foundational principles that are necessary in our clinical practice—that, in every interaction, no matter how complex the presenting issue, we are committed to delivering a quality experience where our customers feel understood and valued. We were so pleased to see this commitment acknowledged this past summer when our therapists were honored with the “Best of the Burg” recognition –selected by the community for managing the Best Mental Health Practice in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area!
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher who said, “The person who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” This idea was central in the development of some of the more effective therapeutic interventions that I use today. It implies that a healthy perspective in all facets of our lives begins first in the mind. That has been the philosophy for both Joanne and myself from the very founding of this company. If our minds are obsessed with distortions that were shaped by traumas, adverse events during childhood, failed relationships, and betrayals from our “past”, then how could we ever expect to know joy and peace that is possible in any “present” endeavor?
I hope that World Mental Health Day is a day of resolution for all of us. When a person first commits to becoming the hero of their own story, they are empowered to discover the best version of themselves for their families, their life, and their legacy. It enables you to find the warrior within you. When individuals pursue autonomy, authenticity, self-determination, and grit, they begin to believe in themselves in a sudden, transformative way. They will defiantly refuse to allow the worst things that have happened to them in this life to have the final say in who they are—and who they can become. Don’t let anything impede the greatness that is still within you, and resolve today to “Discover Your Best!”
Guy Strawder, LMFT, LPC, MHA
Guy Strawder is the CEO of Revelations Counseling & Consulting and one of the licensed psychotherapists at their clinical practice in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He has nearly four decades of leadership, operational, and policy experience in federal healthcare and private-sector consulting. A retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, Guy has served as senior military advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, is published in leading professional journals, and has presented to national commissions on wounded warrior care. He has earned multiple military and civilian honors, including the Defense Superior Service Medal and the Bronze Star Medal for his combat service in Operation Desert Storm. In addition to a Master of Arts in marriage and family therapy from Liberty University, he also holds a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from the University of North Carolina and was a board-certified medical laboratory scientist with the American Society of Clinical Pathology. He and Joanne, his wife and Revelations co-founder, have been married for 40 years, and they are blessed beyond measure by their three daughters, two sons-in-law, and two granddaughters.
Learn more about Guy and the rest of our leadership team at Revelations here.